Letters to Rep. Stauber from Cook County residents reportedly delivered

Over a month after her initial attempt to drop off messages from Cook County residents at the office of U.S. Representative Pete Stauber, Mary Sanders has gotten word that the letters were delivered.

On March 6, during a visit to his office in Washington, D.C., Sanders left a collection of 50 letters she’d gathered with a staffer in Stauber’s office. Sanders identified that staffer as “Will,” and told WTIP that while she was in the office, there was no indication that delivering the letters herself would be a problem. After handing over the bundle of letters, Sanders, accompanied by her grandson, left the office.

On her way out of the building, Sanders said she realized that she’d forgotten her cane in Stauber’s office. Upon retrieving the cane, the letters were also returned.

According to Sanders, Will told her that mail intended for any of the congressional offices must go through the internal mail processing system. This step allows mail to be screened for threats like anthrax, which was used as a bioweapon in a series of attacks in Washington D.C. in 2001.

Sanders said she was frustrated that the letters had initially been accepted, and she added that Will told her that, as a new staffer, he had not been aware of the policy when she handed the letters over.

Before returning home to Minnesota, Sanders said she left the letters with a relative, who then conveyed them to a federal employee who delivered them to the processing office.

WTIP reached out to Rep. Stauber’s office. A staffer told WTIP that the letters had been processed through the Capitol’s mail system, and generally confirmed Sanders’ account of her experience at Stauber’s office. The staffer said they could not give an official statement about it, and referred WTIP to Stauber’s communications director. WTIP requested a statement from the communications director by phone, but has not received comment on this subject.

Since WTIP’s efforts to confirm the receipt of the letters, Sanders has heard from some of the Cook County residents whose letters were part of her parcel. She said that some of the letter-writers have gotten a response from Stauber’s office, so it does appear that the letters have been delivered.

While the letters have now been successfully delivered,  Sanders said that the takeaway from her experience goes beyond the difficulties she faced in getting the messages to an elected official. Some of her frustration was directed, not at Stauber’s office, but at the way the story was repeated through social media.

As she shared her experience, Sanders said she saw posts about it, both from within and outside of the Cook County community, retelling the story with inaccuracies, including saying that the letters had been “trashed.” Sanders said that while her experience was upsetting, she didn’t want criticism of Stauber’s office to center on misinformation.

Correction April 14 9:00 p.m.: The original text of this article stated that WTIP reached out to Rep. Stauber’s office by both email and phone. Their office has contacted WTIP to clarify our email contact information for the communications director, stating that they did not receive the email. The text of this article has been changed to reflect the phone calls made, removing the reference to email.

Kirsten Wisniewski April 14, 2025